Brenda Sutton, of the filk group "Three Weird Sisters," wrote a song called "Mama's Hands." It's a pretty song about a woman who realizes that as she grows up, she starts to sound a lot like her mother--and maybe her mom was wiser than she thought as a teenager.

I was thinking one day about whether that song could be gender-swapped...and realized that it could, and what it would be. This came out.

I just now performed it on the main stage at OVFF, with Brenda and her husband Bill in the audience. They (along with most of the room) were in stitches.

“Father’s Words”
by Will “scifantasy” Frank
ttto: “Mama’s Hands” by Brenda Sutton

( Today while commuting some moron cut me off... )

I didn't spend all that much time at Arisia with shadesong this year; she was busy, I was busy, and that's the way things go. I'm given to understand that she continued the spread of the Gospel of the Y.T., though.

In one of the few times I did see her, Sunday or Monday, this popped into my head. I came up with the first verse, and she asked me (and slipjig, but I don't know if he did) to run with it.

This is dedicated to everybody who has to ask, "is there gluten in this?"

"Celiac"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Cecilia" by Simon and Garfunkel

( Celiac... )

...a new filk. This one came to me recently.

Quick backstory: in the last few years, the waning economy has caused some upheaval in the anime licensing and distribution industry, especially here in the US. A year or two back, Geneon Entertainment shut down its US operations entirely. They're still a major force in Japan, mind. Then, last month or so, A.D. Vision Entertainment, one of the first and biggest US operations for importing, licensing, and distributing anime, sold its assets to five other companies in a complicated deal that sounded like a switcheroo on its creditors (since the five buying companies were ones in which ADV's owners had stakes).

Most of the anime properties licensed by those two companies have seen their licenses bought by another company, Funimation Entertainment. If anybody can be said to be the big winner here, it's Funimation.

Hence, the song. "NGE," for the record, refers to the infamous anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was one of ADV's first and biggest titles...but whose "rebuild" series has been licensed by, who else, Funimation.

"ADV (Now Funimation)"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by Nat Simon (original words by Jimmy Kennedy)

( NGE is now Funimation's... )

In the coming days, expect more actual content (behind the normal friends lock, of course), including an expansion of something I said on Twitter:

"Perfect 10 Magazine is the zombie mine canary of copyright law. When it comes alive (files suit--it's sued Google and Visa), the law is bad."

I didn't post my first two legal filks, because they're frankly not very good, and were written more specifically for the NYU Law Revue, and didn't get used anyway.

But this one was written for me and the filkers. I realized last night that I didn't have anything recent for the housefilk today--and that the most recent thing I had, three months old, didn't work well for me to sing. So I dusted off an idea I'd been thinking about, started trying to write it...and it flowed very easily indeed.

"Sixteen Hours"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Sixteen Tons" by Merle Travis (or George S. Davis)

( Some people say a lawyer is a dirty snake... )

This went over pretty well at the housefilk, I must say.

So, my friend Seanan McGuire has a song called "Pretty Little Dead Girl." It's an urban-legend tale about a '40s-era car-racing ghost, available on her album "Stars Fall Home."

Seanan is also a huge Doctor Who fan.

So, some time ago, when I misheard "It's the tale of Rose Marshall" as "it's the tale of Rose Tyler," I started planning this.

I tried performing this one at Baycon 2009, but it really needs production value, or at least an accompanist. Maybe if I had a karaoke version of the original...but in the meantime.

(I gave Seanan a copy of the lyrics at the con. She read a stanza before telling me she was going to kill me.)

"Time-Traveling Blonde Girl"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Pretty Little Dead Girl" by Seanan McGuire

( It's a very sad story... )

Dedicated to the Bavarian Fire Drill Instructor, the Indy Ploy Player, the Galactic Champion of Making Shit Up.

(Seriously. A bunch of Vorkosigan songs, and an unrelated song called "I Meant To Do That"; how am I the first person to put this together?)

"I Meant To Do That, Vor Style"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "I Meant To Do That" by Echo's Children

( My cousin is a genius and a fast-talking man... )

Really, it was the thought (from the Firefly Wild Mass Guessing page of TV Tropes) of Miles as the "deadly and unpredictable midget" that did it.

Or more accurately, the commentary line: "But I had to set it on fire for a very good reason that I will explain at length as soon as I have made it up, no, honestly, Simon/Gregor/Mother!"

These are voiceofkiki's fault. And a little bit of sweetmusic_27's too. Oh, and I guess mine.

Here's how it is...Last week, VoK posted the following thought:


Still Alive: The new Banned from Argo?

Discuss.

I asked her to clarify: was this in the "everybody refilks it" sense, or the "creator is sick of it" sense? She confirmed the former.

That led to...

( Argo Banned )

And...

( Still Argo )

In a comment, though, sweetmusic_27 opined that she was getting kind of sick of the song. That, in turn, led to...

( Had Enough )

(OK, technically, I wrote "Had Enough" first, then "Argo Banned," then "Still Argo." But it works better this way in the story.)

Just when I thought I wasn't going to have anything new for the Wit's End housefilk...now, if you'll excuse me, I need that brain for exams.

It's like this. cadhla is a good friend of vixyish , and one day, Vixy gave Seanan an idea--which became the song Oh, Michelle. Yesterday, hsifyppah raised the stakes by challenging Seanan with Dammit, Seanan. Seanan fired back at Brooke with Oh, Brooke, and Brooke backed off, pleading Oh, Seanan M. Watching from the sidelines, tisonlyherself weighed in with Clever Brooke.

My turn.

( Oh, Michelle/Seanan/Brooke/Dagain... )

In 1982, after the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, filker Julia Ecklar wrote a song called "Born Again Trek." In it, she cheered that she and Trekkies like her--first-generation fans who had been losing their faith in Star Trek after the show went off the air and the first movie was such a disaster--were "born again Trek fans," their faith restored by the brilliance of the second film.

I've heard many comparisons made between the state of Star Trek after the first film and the state of it today. A lot of people are hoping that the new movie will breathe fresh life into the franchise, the same way Wrath Of Khan did twenty-five-plus years ago.

So it seems only appropriate that I update Julia's anthem for a new generation.

"Born Again Trek: Reborn"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Born Again Trek" by Julia Ecklar

( I was with... )

I wonder how many of you remember Orson Scott Card; he used to be an SF writer...

OK, enough Lehrer patter. Basically, for those of you who didn't know, Orson Scott Card, multiple-award-winning author of Ender's Game and Speaker For The Dead, has in recent years written about how homosexuality is a sin and should be illegal, along with several other political/religious positions which, let's just say, don't endear him to the vast majority of SF fans. Many people have said much on the matter; two of my favorites are from Aerie of Queen Of Wands and Randy Milholland of Something Positive. Most responses, I think, fall into one of those two camps.

This song comes from the Aerie side: how did someone who wrote such fantastic work about tolerance and overcoming differences become a paranoid homophobe?

"Whatever Became Of Orson?"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "Whatever Became Of Hubert?" by Tom Lehrer

( Whatever became... )